October 12, 2007
Worst ex-president ever
On a day when Al Gore joins the ranks of frauds, tyrants, liars and fools who have been awarded the once prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, why don't we check in on a previous recipient, who also happens to be the worst ex-president in our nation's history.
US President George W. Bush's administration tortures detainees in defiance of international law, former US president Jimmy Carter charged Wednesday.
"I don't think it, I know it, certainly," Carter told CNN television when asked if he believed the US administration allowed the use of torture.
Carter rejected Bush's statement last week that the United States does not torture terror suspects.
"That's not an accurate statement, if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored, certainly in the last 60 years, since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated," Carter said in the interview.
"But you can make your own definition of human rights and say, 'we don't violate them.' And ... you can make your own definition of torture and say 'we don't violate it,'" said the former Democratic president and Nobel laureate.
Asked if Bush was lying, Carter said: "The president is self-defining what we have done and authorized in the torture of prisoners, yes."
Those who commit torture were violating international law, Carter said.
The White House rejected Carter's comments and reiterated that the administration does not condone torture.
An ex-president, calling the current president a liar, broadcasting to the world his belief that the United States is guilty of crimes against humanity, based on international standards that have defined "torture" down to include things that don't involve injuring the persons being interrogated.
Using Carter's ever-so-subjective standards, I'd include forcing detainees to listen to any of Jimmah's books-on-tape, read by the author, on the list of cruel and unusual methods.
But let's not stop there; Jimmah has outdone himself, with a comment that reveals more about his narcissism and moral blindness than he intended.
Historian Victor Davis Hanson notes:
The inconsideration of Jimmy Carter never ceases to amaze. Apparently, he is convinced that his Christian piety provides a pass for an ungenerous disposition, that comes across as self-centered and -absorbed—whether campaigning for a Nobel Prize by publicly attacking his president at a time of war, or smearing democratic Israel, or snide comments about his successors. But that being said, I'm surprised at his latest quip:
"I have a specific regret in not having one more helicopter when I wanted to rescue our hostages. If I had had one more helicopter, they would have been rescued. I might have been reelected president."
Aside from the obvious that someone like the equivocator Carter, who sent Ramsey Clark to appease the terrorists, would always have one too few military assets, the statement is extremely callous.
That April 1980 rescue mission ("Operation Eagle Claw") was a catastrophe, costing the lives of 8 Americans, as well as over a dozen wounded, and top-secret plans falling into Iranian hands, as well as dispersion of the hostages.
Carter seems to see the disaster not in terms of innate planning ineptness that led to death and mayhem of our troops, but as a wrong decision that cost him his precious reelection.
To make explicit what Hanson implies, note that Carter's lament of "For want of a chopper, my election was lost!" never makes mention of the American Marines and airmen who were killed trying to rescue the hostages.
I don't give a damn about Jimmah's regrets -- and I thank God that his damage was limited to one term -- but his continuing status as liberal saint, defender of the downtrodden, all too often fails to take note of his disdain for actual individuals, of real people, preferring to deal in victim groups.
Apparently the warriors who fell in service to this incompetent Commander in Chief aren't worth mentioning in the midst of his self-pitying lament.
These are the men who died in the Iranian desert on April 24, 1980:
U.S. Marine Corps
SSGT Dewey L. Johnson, age 31
SGT John D. Harvey, age 21
CPL George N. Holmes, Jr., age 22
U.S. Air Force
MAJ Richard L. Bakke, age 33
MAJ Harold L. Lewis, age 35
CAPT Lyn D. McIntosh, age 33
CAPT Charles T. McMillan, II, age 28
TSGT Joel C. Mayo, age 34
I wonder how the families of these men feel about St. Jimmah's regrets.
Posted by Mike Lief at October 12, 2007 06:33 PM
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Comments
Wow, you really go off sometimes....You're like that asshole Dad in the stands at a football game who screams at the refs and players, but has never played the game...Get in the fight man, show you have some balls. In this case, you really need to check your facts before you paint with the extra broad "liar" brush. Here's the list of past Nobel Peave Prize winners: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/index.html
Check it carefully, I did. Its all about making positive changes for human kind-- Gore did in this case. As for Carter; he's old news............
Posted by: Vern at October 12, 2007 09:36 PM
Submitted for your review, some Nobel Peace Prize winners of the last quarter-century.
Al Gore: to be generous, one given to stretching the truth.
Mohammed ElBaredei: When asked to comment on North Korea reportedly detonating its first nuclear weapon, ElBaredei responded, "It's a cry for help." Lickspittle toady to tyrants, ineffective head of an ineffective agency dedicated to eliminating nuclear proliferation -- when not busy excusing third-world banana republics beavering to get them in order to build self esteem.
Jimmy Carter: Egomaniacal voluptuary of tyrants and dictators; if not anti-semitic, then certainly anti-Israel, and I'd argue anti-American, too.
Kofi Annan and the United Nations: a vipers' nest of anti-semitism, anti-Western animus, and its reform-resistant former head.
Yasser Arafat: Terrorist; Munich Olympics massacre; Lod Airport massacre; countless hijackings, shootings and bombings; captured on tape ordering the murder of U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel and charge d'affaires George Curtis Moore.
Rigoberta Menchú Tum: Wrote an autobiography that falsified much of her life's story, making her a liar and propagandist.
United Nations Peacekeeping Forces: In the history of the United Nations, its forces have kept the peace in Korea, led by the U.S. during three years of bloody fighting. Since then, the U.N. blue-helmets have been present at many massacres, but prevented precious few of them.
Posted by: Mike Lief at October 12, 2007 10:45 PM